I am Pon Van Compernolle and in the past ten years I’ve been professionally involved with many different styles of investment, day-trading, value investing, futures trading, private equity investing, etc… I still remember the first stock I ever bought, BANPU @ Bt. 178/share, and I subsequently lost 20% within 2 weeks thus teaching me an invaluable lesson that before committing your own (or client’s) capital one had better do their homework.

Investing is no fun at all, it is the greatest job in the world and you have to be slightly masochistic to enjoy it, but one’s brain can be constantly filled with non-stop worries (no thanks to the media) attempting to anticipate every potential global crisis or wondering why the management of a company isn’t returning your phone calls or emails.

I’ve seen many ways in which this market and stocks are rigged, manipulated and scammed. But ultimately in the end good companies win out. I will always be a student of the investment world and I’m sure I’ll make several mistakes along the way but I will remember the two most important rules according to Warren Buffet:

“Rule No. 1 – Don’t lose money. Rule No. 2 – Don’t forget Rule No. 1.”

You can email at: pon [@] thaicapitalist.com  // Please remove the brackets!